Miami banking group plans IPO up to $150 million

May 17, 2011|By Doreen Hemlock, Sun Sentinel

Bond Street Holdings, a Miami-based group that has been buying up failed banks across Florida, plans to raise up to $150 million in an initial public offering and will seek a listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

The money will be used to buy more banks, including failed banks sold in deals through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the company said in its filing with regulators.

Bond Street bought Miami's failed Premier American Bank in an FDIC deal early last year, and through Premier American has bought another half-dozen failed banks in Florida in FDIC deals since then. The FDIC shares in the losses on bad loans at the failed banks, making the deals attractive to buyers.

Premier American's branches, with about $2.5 billion in deposits, will be renamed Florida Community Bank this summer, the group has said. That includes five locations in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The IPO would be the second this year for a South Florida company acquiring failed banks and buying and backed by private equity. In January, the Miami Lakes-based group that bought the failed BankUnited in 2009 raised $783 million on the New York Stock Exchange to expand operations of its new BankUnited.

Bond Street, led by veteran financier Daniel M. Healy, has not announced a date or final details of its planned IPO. Lead underwriters for the sale are Deutsche Bank Securities and JPMorgan Chase.